How to Remove a Tick Field & Stream
Google accused of ripping off advertisers with video ads no one saw. Now, the expert view The Register
U.S. Economy Shows Surprising Vigor in First Half of 2023 WSJ
Climate
Wildfire smoke may have contributed to thousands of extra COVID-19 cases and deaths in western U.S. in 2020 Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Real-Time Air Quality Map PurpleAir (Bsn). A lot of red:
Fire and Smoke Map AirNow (Screwball). More red:
World’s Largest Gas Station Is a New Buc-ee’s With 120 Pumps The Drive. Sounds like T.R. Schmidt’s McHooligan’s.
Water
Sriracha prices soar amid ongoing supply shortage linked to droughts The Hill
#COVID19
Wastewater sampling in Canada suggests COVID case rate 19 times higher than reported Center for Disease Research and Policy
Top NIH Official Advised Covid Scientists That He Uses Personal Email to Evade FOIA The Intercept
Uruguay to close schools as paediatric care nears ‘collapse’ Nate Bear. Why? ‘Tis a mystery!
We Just Learned Something Important about Bird Flu Jessica Wildfire
China?
Xi’s Plan for China’s Economy Is Doomed to Fail Foreign Affairs. Commentary:
China Beige Book says credit easing isn't expanding demand. If the problem for businesses was scarce credit, easing credit would be the right way to boost business investment. But if credit is ample and demand is weak, easing credit can't help.https://t.co/Vfq3042G93
— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) June 30, 2023
Weak China manufacturing data adds to pressure on economy FT
China’s foreign ministry, customs, central bank among top agencies in audit net over 1 billion yuan ‘misconduct’ South China Morning Post
Myanmar
The Mirage of the ‘United Front’ in Myanmar The Irrawaddy. Important.
Myanmar and Russia push ahead with nuclear energy cooperation World Nuclear News (tevhatch).
Commentary: Can China help bring peace to Myanmar? Channel News Asia
The Koreas
South Korea’s Per Capita GNI Plummets, Falls Behind Taiwan’s. Blue Roof
South Koreans become younger overnight after country scraps ‘Korean age‘ CNN
India
In a first, India gifts active warship to Vietnam Channel News Asia
European Disunion
Protests rock France after police shooting of teenager CNN. Handy maps:
Cartographie des émeutes https://t.co/oHE9npQJc7 pic.twitter.com/JRN4Nl7KQG
— Fdesouche.com est une revue de presse (@F_Desouche) June 29, 2023
(If readers have alternative sources to recommend on the riots, or the rebellion, or whatever it is, please leave them in comments; this one is apparently on the far right. There are a ton of videos floating around, and some maps, but the provenance on them all is miserably inadequate.)
Protests erupt in Belgium over killing of teen delivery driver in France by police Anadolu Agency
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine aims to wear down and outsmart a Russian army distracted by infighting AP. The new theory, I suppose, now that “the Russians will panic” is all used up.
Anatomy of Storm Shadow Interception Simplicius the Thinker(s)
* * * IAEA saw no evidence Moscow planning attack on Zaporizhia nuclear plant, but ‘anything can happen’ France24
Russian forces begin to flee Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant – Ukrainian Defence Intelligence Ukrainska Pravda
* * * Prigozhin’s Folly Seymour Hersh
Understanding the Wagner Private Military Company Larry Johnson, A Son of the New American Revolution
The Supremes
Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action programs in college admissions SCOTUSblog. Commentary:
In Opinion
"The remaining legal way to make diverse campuses is to do it by class," David Brooks writes. "And it just seems to me that this moment when the Supreme Court has shaken up the admissions process, this is the time to do it." https://t.co/r7jfVyoB7X
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 29, 2023
Anathema to liberal Democrats, of course. Not that it would ever happen.
Supreme Court Decision (press release) Harvard. “The Court also ruled that colleges and universities may consider in admissions decisions “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” We will certainly comply with the Court’s decision.”
The Mysterious Case of the Fake Gay Marriage Website, the Real Straight Man, and the Supreme Court The New Republic. 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis.
One Year on From Dobbs: The Dangers of Radicalizing Minority Rule Thomas Zimmer, Democracy Americana
AI? Brain manipulation? WHO’s new chief scientist aims to anticipate global challenges Science
Digital Watch
Congress pushes aggressive use of AI in the federal government, says AI ‘under-utilized’ in agencies FOX. Maybe there could be a “Red Team v. Blue Team” concept, where an AI and a government agency (say, the CDC) compete to see who can emit the most bullshit, fastest.
People Hire Phone Bots to Torture Telemarketers WSJ
Reddit is running out of patience with protesting moderators Quartz
Sports Desk
Yankees’ Domingo Germán Throws 1st Perfect Game Since Félix Hernández in 2012 vs. A’s Bleacher Report
Lessons in Freedom: Agroecology, Localization and Food Sovereignty Internationalist 360º
Healthcare
How Often Do Health Insurers Say No to Patients? No One Knows. ProPublica
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Military Recruiting Crisis: Even Veterans Don’t Want Their Children to Join WSJ
Class Warfare
Billionaires want to save the world. What’s so wrong with that? FT
Has Anyone Seen Pierre Omidyar? (excerpt) Puck. Omidyar’s blog post: “Collaboration can take many forms. For some [The Omidyar Group (TOG)] teams this will mean partnering with new funders to support mission critical work.”
Worldwide survey kills the myth of ‘Man the Hunter’ Science
Gay Mass Consumption Before Stonewall JSTOR Daily. Physique magazines.
Body and Soul New Left Review
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Regarding hummingbird… turn your volume way up to listen to audio.
https://abcbirds.org/bird/marvelous-spatuletail/
Largest gas station opens in Sevierviile, TN. One more reason for Pigeon Forge tourist traffic on I-40 between Knoxville to Asheville slowing to a crawl. \sarc
Have yet to visit a Buc-ee location, but they are expanding into South Carolina with a planned location off I-85 south of Greenville (nearer to Anderson and Clemson exits). Heck they might have one elsewhere (Charleston) but I can’t bother to look just now.
I had made a withdrawal from the previous record holder in Jean, Nv, which has a measly 96 pumps along with a White Castle inside and the go-juice was a buck more than in Vegas!
Aside from pump envy I didn’t really get the concept for when I go to a gas station with 4 to 8 pumps it isn’t as if I think to myself as I usually drive right up and do my business…
‘Gee, if I only had 100 pumps instead?’
Pump It Up, by Elvis Costello
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KI9eN-AY1s
On the CNBC channel this early morning on East Coast time, discussion centered around the equity performance of Ferrari and that they were greater than either GM, or Ford, in terms of market cap. Will Ferrari join the fray of EV manufacturing? Egads, I do not fathom any appeal to the well heeled buyers. I suspect the luxury brand’s appeal will remain in all its ICE glory as a vehicular choice for the Jackpot inclined.
On Ferrari joining the EV fray: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2022/06/16/ferrari-to-go-electric-in-2025-with-40-ev-sales-by-2030/?sh=5c09147e66a2
Bucees is nice, but the larger ones are a madhouse. Generally I just want to use the facilities and gas up more than I want brisket tacos, fudge, and memorabilia, so I visit dirty and gross random gas stations instead.
Just got back from vacation. Stopped at 3 buc-ees. I had never been to one previously. Wow, it is busy. I spoke with a manager in Crossville TN. Employs 400 people. Relatively good wages for Crossville, $17 .50 to $22 and hour to start. No idea if offer benefits. Managers make north of $100k and the head person of the location can make up to $250k. I had managed a busy restaurant for years and basketball arena concessions. I was interested and impressed with the logistics of Buc-ees. Managing that place, with so many employees and products, 24 hours a day, 365 days would make you earn that pay.
For those who remember Stuckey’s, a Buc-ee’s is a Stuckey’s the size of Connecticut. The place is astonishing, in the Great American Way: 120 gas pumps, everything inside including clothing. Stopped with friends at one in North Georgia. The brisket is much better than the McRib (which I tried, once). Actually that was no contest; one was actual food. And I especially liked the art gallery leading to and on the walls of the restroom; prints of semi-famous photographs from this part of the world. But YMMV!
A “contract employee” in my building was chosen to work at the Buc-ee’s nearby. The competition was fierce, for reasons mentioned by polar donkey. Her manager-to-be asked her if she was willing to help maintain the restrooms (the size of Rhode Island) during especially busy times. Her reply was that since she had done it for $8.50 an hour at her previous job (ours), doing it at $18.50 per hour would be no problem. At all. If they pay those wages in this spot on planet Earth, more power to them! The people will learn to love Buc-ee Beaver. For good reason. The owners of those other “large” gas station-convenience stores, not so much.
Fire and smoke map, sports recap edition. Watching ESPN coverage, there was an afternoon game between the visiting Padres against the home team Pittsburgh. Based on TV viewing, which I grant can offer a sheen of better supposed air quality, it really appeared that MLB did a boo boo in permitting this game to be played. No worries for the Pirates, as the Padres continue their struggling ways in a path towards highly compensated but mediocre end results. Self immolation is not just limited to the Boston Red Sox during game six in 1986.
And as to the perfect game was a real zipper, 99 pitches. About the only occasion I pay heed to MLB coverage anymore, if something truly unique occurs.
In a truly Earth-shaking event, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs easily defeated Steph Curry and Klay Thompson of the San Fran Warriors in a match play golf special played in Vegas last night. (Pretty awful to see that golf course and imagine how much water is wasted on it.) When the Chiefs duo won four of the first six holes, Ernie Johnson commented that it was surprising since the Chiefs usually fell behind San Fran teams before ultimately defeating them. It was all over early after the 10th hole.
This is a good site also : firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/
Thanks for that link; I imagine I’ll give it a workout as the summer proceeds. It shows things pretty quiet in Cali today, wildfire-wise. In a normal (i.e. drought) year I’d expect dumbass human activity over the 4th of July to kickstart inferno season, but it says on the internet that ground fuels in the mountains are still relatively moist, while the deep high-elevation snowpack could delay the worst fires until late summer. Still, July 4 is historically the #1 wildfire start date in the west by a wide margin. https://www.oregonlive.com/wildfires/2021/06/heres-how-many-wildfires-humans-cause-july-4-and-why-west-needs-to-skip-fireworks-opinion.html
Baseball has become so boring it’s a wonder the announcers don’t nod off.
I look at the Boston Globe for sports and the Zippy cartoon…no Sox thank you. However, I spied a headline on a Sox story the other day…it read: Red Sox Beat White Sox 3-1. The subhead read: Sox win despite striking out 17 times. So, regardless of the offense the Red Sox bats produced 10 outs via batted balls. My old man, were he alive, would be dazzled.
The Robert Plant concert was cancelled here locally because of the air.
“Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action programs in college admissions”
As one person on Twitter responded-
‘The Supreme Court may have overturned affirmative action but don’t worry, you can still donate money to and vote for Democrats who will do nothing about it’
In Europe, it is apparently no longer possible to use Twitter without an account. The links automatically lead to the homepage.
Same here in Oz the past few hours.
Same here in NH USA as of around 7-730a when I tried.
Yes, it’s the case for me as well here in ‘murika’. Links go to home page.
It’s a glorious day.
Good thing sanity prevails over at Mastodon —
Just happened to me (in Canada) this morning with the antidote du jour
Ditto. Can’t share Twitler links with anyone not on the platform.
Does this break all the embedded tweets on the daily NC posts?
The text, which is the important part, remains.
I copy the URL, paste it, and change “twitter.com” to “nitter.net.” It doesn’t work all the time, but is generally helpful for this. This is not the first time twitter did this. When Elon Musk took over, it opened again, I guess he’s (or someone else there) decided they have to know who’s looking.
The EU is ready to put the hammer down on Twitter. Because there, the proles & mopes can discuss the European war situation without ritual condemnations of Russia- or discuss what Ralph Baric, Anthony Fauci and Peter Daszek were up to in China without just blaming the ‘CCP’ or hewing to other Anglo-American orthodoxy. Dissidents will move to Mastodon I suppose. Then they’ll start levying fines on that and so on.
Yep. Definitely a new development. So much for Musk’s concern for openness and transparency. Makes me wonder if there is some significant news story for which someone wants to limit exposure.
Here’s hoping Taibbi and others will start dual posting to both twtr and other platforms. / ;)
Twitter has thus done us all a great favor.
The aerosol community, and many other Covid communities, would never have come together on any other platform. So Twitter saved a lot of lives. Take your easy cynicism and shove it.
Yes, this.
But I’m not going to give Big Brother any more insight as to what I read. At least in the USSR, once you got samizdat they couldn’t tell whether you read it, only that you had it in your possession (presuming they even found out). How quickly people forget that their grandparents listened to free radio stations (like Dutch radio or the BBC under the bedcovers in Nazi Germany). I have been using nitter which meant they couldn’t track me so easily, but now that’s broken.
Another reason people will refuse to make accounts is that any foreigner visiting the US must tell DHS all their social media accounts… and I doubt it is just to see what you wrote online.
Elon says he wants Twitter to be the go-to source for news. That’s not going to happen if one has to look at it through their control, their algorithm, and their constant monitoring.
I hate the way these corporations think that just because a community has formed on one of their platforms that it is “their community” to do with as they please. Reddit’s war on 3rd party software, the moderators who provide free work to them, and now this. As if we were all the possessions of any company that made a road we drive on, or any company that publishes a book we read.
I wonder if this is the doing of that horrible Yacarino woman Elon made CEO, who cares more about making money than she does about societal impact. If so, I hope she gets fired before she wrecks Twitter.
Supposedly this is an emergency measure.
I hope it is.
https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/2023/twitter.png
Um.. f@ck you, Lambert. Self righteous prick.
Otis, you can always find another site on which to ‘comment.’ I believe you have just committed an ad hominem. A no no.
Rules 4 and 5:
Not even an on-point response, either!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with our readership. I hope you find the happiness you seek. Elsewhere.
Allow me to thank you, on your way out, for your implicit suggestion to moderate “f@ck,” good job.
Yes, Lambert. The day after Thanksgiving, 2021, we were gathered at our daughter’s house in NJ. There was a ‘break’ in CoVid and we were all breathing a sigh of relief, sort of.
I checked Twitter, early that morning. Trevor Bedford, at Seattle’s Fred Hutch, whom I had been following as he and other computational virologists around the world, mapped out the lineages of the various CoVid strains, had just published a long thread.
His details on a new, highly contagious strain out of South Africa, was the equivalent of a non-scientist jumping up and down, yelling “Fire!! We’re all gonna die!” Couched in technical terms, but highly urgent.
I warned all our gathered family members, telling them not to give up their precautions. By December, Omicron had infected millions.
> I warned all our gathered family members, telling them not to give up their precautions. By December, Omicron had infected millions.
Many other cases like this. Perhaps not enough to show up statistically at the macro level, but plenty of cases like yours.
Puh-lenty.
The only thing I go to Twitter for is Big Serge’s updates. I hope he finds a new platform, because I’m not signing up for twitter.
https://bigserge.substack.com/
He’s on Substack.
Nitter still works, for now.
It stopped working for me yesterday, and it is still not working for me.
Good bye twitter. Sorry you can’t have my data.
Yeah, I started to log in with my Goog account and was notified my email address would be shared with ‘partners’. No thanks. I cancelled. Don’t need more spam filling up my email inbox.
I wonder if when you ‘share’ with ‘partners’, whether those ‘partners’ get to share with other ‘partners.’
Well, that’s moronic.
In a word, so true.
Nitter isn’t working presently; it stopped working yesterday.
Sounds like its time for somebody to develop a kinder gentler “twitter”-type company-service under the name Cricket. And it could call its tweety-notes by the name ” chirps”.
When Elon Stench gets Twitter burned all the way down, a lot of people will wish for a kinder gentler user non-hostile Twitteresque type of place.
Glenn Greenwald did an extensive, and in my view, persuasive piece on it last night.
In my view, the only solution to racial and more importantly class distinctions is to fund education from the general fund. Of course, the privileged would scream bloody murder.
New Mexico funds education via the general fund, not property taxes.
Some of that is due to the peculiar history of landownership in the 470 years since Spanish settlement; lots of very tiny ranches etc owned by poor families but who actually do vote and communicate with their legislators, so real estate taxes are very low.
Lots of Federal dollars plus taxes on oil & gas plus a strange sales & use type “gross receipts “ tax make for an unusual funding system.
And, lottery money funds college scholarships
And the only state with USA on the license plate…
Any my personal pet peeve is that private school tuition is tax deductible AND the elimination of a student from the public system eliminates per-capita funding. I believe private schools should not be tax deductible and subject to a surcharge paid back to the relevant school district at least equal to the funding the public school lost when precious snowflake was pulled out. Well-funded public schools are pretty much the foundation of any functioning country . . . not that we live in one in the US.
Umm, Art, I believe that you are mistaken. Check the IRS web site. Child care for working parents is eligible for a deduction. This may include summer day camp, as well as after-school activities.
If you child has special needs, private school may be deductible.
When will the SCOTUS rule on discriminatory legacy admissions? Probably more legacy than affirmative action admissions.
I’ve heard that at my small liberal arts college, the true number of “open” slots after legacies and athletic recruits is about 300. Total incoming class size is around 1100.
Not to worry. The blacks and browns who can’t get into colleges have been welcomed into the military by the Supreme Court. According to Justice Roberts, military academies have “potentially distinct interests” and therefore should be made an exception:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/affirmative-action-good-for-the-military-bad-for-society-high-court-rules
The message is clear. All those “excluded” who are not wanted at elite institutions are invited to die for them and the status quo. It’s also clear (the usual 6-3 vote) that Supreme Court justices don’t disinterestedly weigh the issues and then arrive at ruling. No, they make up their minds and then they make up their reasons. I’m talking to you, Roberts.
The service academy is important because it shows the Supremes are afraid of groups fighting back. They know Biden having Obama promising to redouble efforts of doing nothing is just simply that.
If Biden had simply forgiven the debt, the challenge wouldn’t even be heard. The Republicans would be too scared of effectively levying a tax, but they knew Biden would want to use it as an election promise. Now, Biden has undercut good will and potential organizing. Trotting out a loser like Obama is a sign of desperation. He was a terrible President, but its who they have.
Did you happen to notice, from the links above, that David Brooks actually said something sensible on the topic?
“The remaining legal way to make diverse campuses is to do it by class,” David Brooks writes. “And it just seems to me that this moment when the Supreme Court has shaken up the admissions process, this is the time to do it.”
By class! In other words, admissions and debt forgiveness for all those who need it. I cannot shake my suspicions however. It’s David Brooks advocating it. There’s gotta be a catch somewhere.
It goes to show you never can tell. In a world where Donald Trump is right more often than the presumptive Democrat nominee, I can’t rule out the possibility that David Brooks is right about something. Tom Friedman might be next.
Given the big loophole allowing applicants to merely cite some kind of racial discrimination to gain admission, affirmative action may well persist in practice. Instead, since affirmative action unavoidably penalizes some people for things they haven’t done, the court perhaps should have mandated that such programs be open and voluntary for those who would be excluded.
Who hunts, who gathers?–
The article covers what is really more an attempt to confirm a much earlier shift in anthropological thinking about gender role among hunter-gatherers. I recently came across this short piece from about a dozen years ago about men, women, hunting, gathering and the rise of hierarchy by anarcho-primitivist John Zerzan.
My make-believe discussion group of an ecomodernist (e.g. Rache Pritzker), a traditionalist (e.g. Patrick Deneen), a transhumanist (e.g. Elise Bohan) and a primitivist (e.g. Zerzan) tackle this topic in a “Dialogue About the Future: Sex and Gender” at “Getting Back to the Garden.”
In my opinion the character of this debate, like so many in anthropolgy, has been more akin to posturing by fans of some sort of genre fiction than anything approaching scientific discourse.
My own take is that which sex participates in what sort of food acquisition appears to have more to do with competition for resources than any other single factor.
Max Blumenthal nails it at the UN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddc1ix_9MII
Max Blumenthal mentioned a Grayzone independent audit of US tax dollar allocation to the Ukraine. Here is the link for it-
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/27/gravy-train-independent-audit-ukraine/
Thanks for the link.
“Emmanuel Macron partied the night away at an Elton John concert last night, while France was engulfed in a third night of violent riots.”
I wonder if he is still angling to attend the BRICS meeting; and no doubt he will also get to Vilnius for the NATO meetings.
He clearly is good at setting priorities.
Macron really fumbled when Europe decided to bootlick Biden (of all people; Trump broke minds). France is the only Euro country that has an international presence anymore.
Patience broke with Macron. He’s only presidente because he enjoyed support from basically the rioters who were very concerned about LePenn’s xenophobia. White refugees from a properly foreign country were getting much better treatment than nominally french citizens and colonists.
Then Macron’s domestic policies are an issue. Macron in particularly is problematic as he was always a president that was the result of a compromise with the mandate to do nothing but tinker who decided to ignore that to embrace radically right wing policies.
If only the people involved with the recent pension reform protests were to work together with the current group…
It’s a bit fog of war. Is there organization or is this catharsis, but I think Aurelian answers it below. This is catharsis. The problem is the state is so weak it can’t deal with this, and I don’t think the protest organizers understood where things were. They didn’t get a win of any sort, so they can’t control anymore.
Since there’s a lot of coverage of the unrest in France, here’s a short view from the ground (literally so, because there were riots and fires near me last night.) The situation is highly complex, but here’s a very brief guide to what’s going on.
First, there’s only an indirect link between the shooting of Nayeb and the riots. Everybody has been waiting for an explosion like this for years, and it’s just a surprise that it didn’t happen the time of the Gilet jaunes in 2018/19, for example. These are not riots, and it’s not really anarchy. It’s more of a blind, almost nihilist, lashing out at every aspect of these young peoples’ lives. Schools have been burned down, libraries destroyed, cars and lorries hijacked and randomly burnt, supermarkets wrecked and buses and trams set on fire. There is no central ideology, no coordination, no real objective other than destruction. There have been a few marches and protests, not to mention a minute of silence at the National Assembly, and the grifters have already begun to grift. But the causes and the effects go much deeper. How did we get here?
Well, the first thing to say is that there have been immigrants From France’s former colonies for a long time. Many came from Algeria after independence, escaping the FLN, and many more during the Civil War there. They integrated into society, and their children studied hard in school and university to take advantage of what the French call the “social elevator.” They are now heavily (even disproportionately) represented in the professions, in politics, business, the public service and the media. They then moved out of the poorer areas, making room for the next wave. This is how the system is supposed to work.
Then, several things happened in the 90s. With the advent of neoliberalism, doors were opened to effectively unrestricted immigration, with the right to bring your family with you. In addition, with Schengen and the “freedom of movement,” many immigrants from elsewhere came to France, attracted by the generous social security provisions. Now if this had been intelligently thought through and the problems identified and dealt with, it would not necessarily have been a problem. But literally nothing was done, and immigrants were simply dumped in poor areas with limited services and strained education systems. Many of the parents could not speak French, many were illiterate. No real effort was made to provide language-training, and today classes where half the children have trouble following the lessons are common in poor areas.
At the same time there was a change in education policies. The sociologist Pierre Bordieu, (beloved of NC, I know) produced a report saying that current school teaching was too hard, and could harm the self-esteem of children. Things needed to be made easier, and the traditional status of the teacher needed to change to a kind of “colleague” of the pupil. Examination standards were consequently lowered and the official government policy towards learning is today described as “benevolence” which is to say that mistakes are not corrected and students are not criticised and told to do better. The fall in standards has been catastrophic: according to the government’s own figures, one in five 11-year old pupils has difficulties reading and writing. That’s an average, so you can imagine what it must be in the poorer areas. (The middle-class is fine, since you ask, and is increasingly sending its children to private schools, run mostly- oh irony – by the Catholic Church). The result is that many of the teenagers in poorer areas are functionally illiterate and can’t get a job. Supermarket managers complain that they can’t find people to stack shelves, because you have to be able to read the labels. I don’t think this is quite what Bordieu had in mind.
In 2005, resentment against the State, which was clearly doing nothing for these people, boiled over after two teenagers fleeing the police, ran onto a railway line and were electrocuted. Riots went on for weeks. The reaction of the government (Sarkozy was Interior Minister at the time) was to run away. The Police were withdrawn from the poor, rough areas, nothing expect a token effort was made to address the social problems and the banlieuex were just left to rot. Macron had no interest in them – his power-base was elsewhere – and any attempt to warn that there might be problems was dismissed because racism. Well, now it’s happened. The banlieuex were effectively handed over to organised crime, and full-scale battles with automatic weapons for control of the drugs trade are now quite common. The police cannot enter these areas now except fully-armed and protected, and usually in pursuit of drug traffickers, which doesn’t, to put it mildly, give them a good image. They are inevitably attacked, but then so are other services of the state: doctors, paramedics, the fire service, the local authorities, even the transport service.
Finally, this generation of rioters are the first to have grown up since 2005. They have no hope, not much education, and few prospects other than entry-level jobs in drug cartels. The school, which was historically the way out of the problem, is visibly disintegrating. No-one wants to work in these areas, and so young and inexperienced teachers just out of training are sent there. They are verbally and sometimes physically assaulted by pupils and parents, and threatened unless they stop teaching the Theory of Evolution, for example. Most get out as soon as they can. Schools around the Paris area are desperately short of teachers, and the quality of applicants is falling sharply, as I also know from personal contacts. A report just last week said that in the area around Paris, in the latest recruitment programme, applicants were being accepted with a score of only 6/20 in the final examinations, after a university degree and two years’ professional training. These young people still live in hierarchical, patriarchal societies, where violence in the home is routine, women are hidden away and Imams tell you how to vote and what to think. The contrast between a regimented life of despair and the promises they see on their mobile phones must be unbearable.
These sort of shootings are very uncommon, and this incident has shocked the whole political system. But Macron, with his usual dissociation from reality, shows no signs of understanding even what the basic problem is, let lone how it might be addressed. And that would be a massive job, making up for thirty years of neglect and stupidity.,
Sorry about the length of this: believe it or not I’ve left a lot out.
>>>Sorry about the length of this: believe it or not I’ve left a lot out.
Do not worry about the length as this is a very informative post especially compared with the problems in the media. Thank you.
Thank you for the summary. Just a quick follow up. You write that these sorts of shootings are “very uncommon” yet I believe I’ve read that recently there have been 14 police shootings resulting in death in the past 18 months. What seems uncommon about this death is it was filmed and directly contradicted official claims of self defence by the police involved. Instead, the video shows two policemen standing next to the stopped vehicle with one pointing a gun at the young man before shooting him.
From the different efforts at tracking police involved death in the US, I realize there are many ways to define and count this sort of thing. Just wondering if there are similar efforts in France with disagreement on definition?
Its probably in the back of minds, but if they don’t act they become the US. There may not be organization, but they know the outcome of going home. The danger is there is no one capable of quelling and reforming right now. The rumors are Macron pushed pension theft for fear he would be a lame duck. I’m not sure what he will do. He hasn’t accepted he won’t be Jupiter Macron.
Well, the first thing is to say that the police in France (as elsewhere I presume) do open fire and kill actual criminals, and have sometimes been fired at first. That said, two things seem to be clear.
After the terrible massacres of 2015-16 (more than three hundred dead) the (then) Socialist government changed the law to widen the criteria where the police were allowed to use deadly force. Previously, it was limited to situations of legitimate self-defence, usually construed to include a direct and obvious threat to the life of someone close to you. But not only were there a fair number of deadly assaults on police and soldiers with hidden weapons, notably knives, but one of the largest massacres, in Nice in 2016 of some 60 people, was perpetrated by someone who stole a lorry and used it as a weapon. At least in theory, those deaths could have been prevented by firing on the occupant before anyone was actually killed. (The use of stolen cars as weapons, not to say for transporting explosives and weapons, isn’t exactly unknown.)
The result was the 2017 law which brought the police into line with the gendarmerie, essentially saying that the use of force had to be “proportional.” This immediately led to more fatal shootings by the police and more use of weapons to stop fleeing cars. The problem is that the gendarmerie is a military force with a lot more training, and they make proportionately much less use of their weapons than the police (though it’s also fair to say they are deployed outside the big cities.) There’s a shedload of psychological studies showing that under stress, and especially without sleep or doing shift work, people think themselves to be in danger when they aren’t, and tend to over-react rather than under-react. There have already been calls for more training to address problems of this kind.
But that’s not the only problem. The police are short of manpower, worked to death and badly over-stressed. The number of early retirements, suicides and breakdowns increases every year. Just as with teachers, no-one wants to go and work in the banlieuex so you get young and inexperienced policemen on their first assignments put into situations where they need maturity and experience above all.
Minor correction: the Nice promenade lorry attacker seems to have massacred some 84 people (not 60).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/jul/14/nice-bastille-day-france-attack-promenade-des-anglais-vehicle
>>> Dear NC quick note about the ‘handy map’ link : FdeSouche is a notorious far right website spreading misinformation about ‘communautarism’ and inciting to racist violence. It counts as the one of the most read blogs of the French ‘fachosphère’.
I believe it needs to be indicated in the link description at least, as currently their advertising as a simple ‘press review’ is misleading to say the least.
Thank you
Thanks very much. I was looking for maps from some source, any source, and at least FdeSouche had a website. And I’m not at all familiar with the French media environment
If you have better sources to recommend on the riots, or the rebellion, or whatever it is, I’d appreciate it.
The site name is telling: FdeSouche is an abbreviation of “Français de souche”, i.e. “ethnic French” — a terminology very much originating within and used by the French extreme-right.
FranceInfo (part of Radio France) has an interactive map on their website for last nights and today’s violence here:
https://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/adolescent-tue-par-un-policier-a-nanterre/carte-mort-de-nahel-visualisez-l-ampleur-des-emeutes-en-france-lors-de-cette-troisieme-nuit-de-violences_5921783.html
It’s attached to one particular story, but I imagine that it will be updated tomorrow and should be easy enough to find on their site.
Thank you. Back in the 90s (or so) there was some debate on how to deal with migration and, it was said there are two models, that if I can remember correctly could be identified as the English and the rest of Europe exemplified by France. The French model emphasized that migrants should follow European secular education standards and the veil, for instance, wouldn’t be admitted in French public schools.
For what you say the French model was abandoned, because neoliberalism, and the migrants turned to live in ghettos where they keep their traditions and see little semblance of the public services. Keeping the gates open for migration will only make this ghetto problem grow and grow. You cannot have cheap labour by migration and at the same time security if you aren’t willing to integrate the migrants.
In Spain parties like VOX which are often assimilated as Le Pen’s RN want exactly this: cut all public expenses (health, education) on migrants. You can see them as the weaponized arm of neoliberalism. They are extremely orthodox on some of the neoliberal principles on public spending and demand we go for this ghetto model. They are getting increasingly popular precisely in the areas where those ghettos will develop.
IMO, until this problem is not faced and solved migration should me stopped while you cannot guarantee integration. You aren’t solving anything by allowing this problem to grow. Neoliberalism is turning the Garden into Jungle following Borrell’s take.
A few points:
1) It is banlieues, not banlieuex. I suspect you are using an automatic spell-checker that is not tuned to French.
2) Then, several things happened in the 90s. Actually, something decisive had already happened in the 1970s, since it is in 1979 that the first large riot took place in a banlieue. Riots grew up in number and scale during the 1980s before becoming a fixture of the national media in 1990 (after the death of a youngster on a motorbike colliding with a police car).
Interestingly, in almost all cases, the triggers were the same as the one of the most recent riot in France: police over-reaction against youngsters, or fatal accidents after law-breaking youngsters tried to escape intervening police forces. In some cases, it was fighting between rival gangs. Also remarkable, the riots were initially affecting the banlieues of cities like Villeurbanne, Toulon, Rouen, Le Havre, and, originally and quite frequently, Lyon. Troubles in the banlieues of Paris only started towards the mid 1990s.
3) The reaction of the government (Sarkozy was Interior Minister at the time) was to run away. Not quite. There were several actions to reduce discrimination, reserve some places in the famous “grandes écoles” (kind of “affirmative action for banlieues”), etc. But in truth, they were abandoned as soon as Sarkozy ascended to the presidency. More substantial was the “politique de la ville” — which resulted in €48bn invested between 2005 and 2015 to improve the infrastructure of the banlieues. The improvements were notable — but the fundamental socio-economic difficulties of the inhabitants themselves remained addressed.
4) There was a reaction of the young inhabitants of the banlieues that seems to have been forgotten: their involvement in jihadist movements — whether committing attacks in France itself as self-declared members of Al-Qaeda, or joining Daesh in Iraq and Syria. That strand of violent militancy has apparently subsided — just as large-scale riots re-occur.
5) I doubt that Bourdieu’s proposal was to dumb down school curricula, but I would have to examine the sources. There would also be a lot to say about the mosaic of French police forces, and how, because of insufficient personnel, the government is using the wrong units for the wrong job when widespread riots flare up, but that will be enough for now.
1. Yes.
2. Agree, especially the point about rival gangs.
3. Yes, I remember the idea of kids from the banlieus going to the grandes écoles. It provoked much sardonic comment at the time. (“Better educated rioters” was one I remember.)
4. Very much agree. But the weapons are still around ….
5. Yes, wrong people, wrong place, wrong equipment. I’m by no means sure the State can actually cope with this.
So like in the neflix movie Athena… Life imitates art…
What is the definition of a ‘cold war’?
‘Usually the Cold War – the rivalry after World War II between the Soviet Union and its satellites on the one hand, and the United States and other Western democracies on the other: waged on many fronts including economic, political, educational, scientific, and military: During the Cold War, the space race provided another avenue of competition without direct military conflict.
-intense economic, political, military, and ideological rivalry between nations that does not extend to military conflict; sustained hostile political policies and an atmosphere of strain between opposed countries…’
Or even between allies and friends. We engage in a new war, the locals there start to pack up and move to some other country if they have the means, and probably permanently since the U.S. isn’t known for short wars — we’re there to occupy. It sets off waves of tension over resources, globally and locally. This has to be a cold war tactic, as effective in it’s own way as a conquistador wading ashore and coughing on the natives. Killing without weapons by loading up the competition with dependents and obligations on which they’ll spend their resources trying to meet or they’ll have the additional problem of a civil war to deal with. This has to be as old as war itself. Does it have a name?
No apologies needed, thanks for a great summary cum analysis.
1900 cars burned in one night according to my local news – seeing those maps, I believe it.
Thanks for this comment.
I expect no one on NC will appreciate this commentary by a conservative. Nevertheless, here goes. utube.
Equity: The Thief of Human Potential – Thomas Sowell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WYi-64MejU
Ditto on the thanks–just getting to this. I don’t watch nearly as many French movies as I used to but a couple of good ones recently have been about the poverty in the banlieues. Gagarine was about a soon to be torn down housing complex and a space obsessed teenager (the complex named after Yuri Gagarin) who tries to stop it.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Gagarine_(film)
Meanwhile the middle class light entertainment that is more the mode in French film these days seems ridiculously trivial and arch.
So it’s the PMC versus the lowers who were once the great theme of French cinema. Such a shame that America is becoming the world’s thought leader.
Or was becoming–Putin and some others might differ.
This is a tremendous and alarming analysis. Thank you very much.
Merci beaucoup for the very informative comments — they really helped me to understand the context of what’s happening in France.
“Protests rock France after police shooting of teenager” CNN.
Handy maps
Somebody online was having fun with those maps by imagining the reaction of the media if the left hand map had been actually eastern Russia while that on the right was of Moscow and not Paris. I’d pay good money to see that as it would be like watching Piranha skeletonizing a cow.
Seems like some “wheeled tanks” might come in handy about now…
– ‘Prigozhin’s Folly’ – Seymour Hersh
I don’t know who Hersh’s “knowledgeable source in the American intelligence community” is, but this narrative on Prigozhin’s “folly” seems pretty sound to me. A good summary by Hersh, and complimentary to the fine essay by Rob Urie posted today. There is an added bonus. Not only does Hersh rip the Democrats for their war-mongering – he’s been doing this for a while now – but he also notes their abandonment of the working class, and recommends the books of Thomas Frank for understanding how they reached this miserable point in their history! Good points all around.
That said, there is a lot about Prigozhin’s actions that remain puzzling to me. In particular, I still have problems placing his bizarre rant spouting what Rob Urie rightly calls “CIA talking points” about the origins of the conflict. This doesn’t seem to square with any of the more reasonable explanations for his actions (like the one laid out in Hersh’s article).
Seems to be his usual thing.
If things don’t go his way, he says whatever harms the government the most.
Be it traitors everywhere, straight out lying about the situation on the ground, questioning the overall policy, etc.
An excellent summary by Hersh. There should be more journalists like him, but here we are.
The Prigozhin Stunt is not over yet. Over the past three days, at least two RU governors (from Ivanov and Pskov) confirmed that their local troops died during Prigozhin’s stunt. Important to note that RU governors are not elected; they are appointed by VVP. Thus, we can reasonably assume that they don’t do or say anything without clearance from above. Hence, VVP is preparing public opinion for what he (with quiet help from Lukashenko) will eventually do to Prigozhin. I expect that some form of justice will eventually be meted out, probably rough justice rather than the long-and-drawn-out legal kind. VVP cannot ignore what Prigozhin did. I listened to Prigozhin’s 10-minute self-justifying broadcast yesterday. He speaks clearly and confidently, actually rather well-spoken, the kind of guy who might appeal to a lot of young men in RU flyover country who seek glory and money. Not a stupid man. He is dangerous. And I think VVP finally understands this and will take the necessary steps. It will be interesting to see exactly how and when Prigozhin meets his fate.
Correction: RU governors were appointed by the President only from 2004 to 2013, since then they’ve been elected. Doesn’t change my point of view, but just sayin’ for the sake of good order.
Uruguay is also experiencing water issues.
Today’s antidote “via” link is to yesterday’s antidote.
Thank you for the neat particulate air map. College sent out an air quality notice for today this morning so it must be on the way. Upper CT River Valley is still clear of smoke, though we are having heavy fog at the moment.
The College and Med School have doubled down after SC ruling yesterday. The college president and med school dean immediately sent out defiant letters to everyone via email. Watched Greenwald last night on rumble, and it was a good discussion of prior case law, and the majority and dissenting opinions.
All in all the both read, to me, as bland prepared statements regarding commitment to diversity in the name of “responding” while the office of general council does a detailed parsing of the verdict.
I received an email from the president of my law school. It pretty much mirrored the Harvard response (although I should say basically nobody is rejected from my small, private alma mater these days).
Anyway, this approach should be very good for the spawn of the PMC who identify with a recognized identity and have the means to hire admissions consultants to write their application essays.
“We Just Learned Something Important about Bird Flu”
Several years ago I did some research on the Great Flu Pandemic which swept the world a century ago. I figured that there was a very good chance that I would live long enough to go through the next world wide pandemic and wanted an idea of what to expect and how to prepare. I was right and I was wrong. Yes, we did get to see the next big Pandemic but it was not the Flu but a Coronavirus. I don’t think that I heard the world till January of 2020. But the idea that the next Flu Pandemic is already here but is still trying to find a genetic combination to get past the BTN3A3 gene shield for us humans is not a confidence builder. It does explain why those cats in Poland have been getting sick and dying.
So here is the thing. The past three years we have been living through a pandemic of a respiratory virus. But in order not to disturb the fundamentals of the economy, we have been discouraged to wear masks, to go to work even if obviously sick, to wash our hands more frequently, to do bit of social distancing because of droplets and basically to pretend that the whole pandemic is over. So no redesigning buildings with ventilation in mind, no travel restrictions, blah, blah, blah because that might make the economy sad. You know have people conditioned that this is how you act in the middle of a respiratory pandemic which is actually some high level crazy. So I ask you – when that Flu finally gets its upgrade and can infect humans, what is the bet that we will have our governments doing the exact same thing as this time around because it worked so well? And once more we will hear the battle cry ‘Hey, it’s just the flu, bro!’ Jesus wept.
My impression of the situation here in California was that official action came when widespread individual action became apparent to our leadership.
Influenza definitely has the potential to trigger widespread individual action.
re: Yankees’ Domingo Germán Throws 1st Perfect Game Since Félix Hernández in 2012 vs. A’s Bleacher Report
64 years ago Harvey Haddix of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitched 12 perfect innings of baseball and lost in the 13th. TTBOMK no MLB perfect game has gone beyond 9.
I saw a perfect game at UVA in 2011. Thrown by the mid week starter. I missed the first five outs.
June 13, 2012: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Cain%27s_perfect_game
The perfect game was saved by a spectacular catch by right-fielder Gregor Blanco in the seventh inning, one for the record books (no exaggeration):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36XwmiLEg4
Obviously, I’m a Giants fan. Been one since 1962, the days of the Willies’, Mays and McCovey.
UVA? That’s “Thomas Jefferson Community College” in the vernacular of my Va Tech Hokie neighbors! I do admit to finding that pretty funny…
I was at Nolan Ryan’s last perfect game against the As or was it a no hitter? I can’t remember but still have ticket stub;-)
Ryan still holds the record for most no hitters (7 if I remember right) but he never pitched a perfect game.
I was at the game where he threw his last pitch. It was in September in Seattle in the early 90s and he was scheduled to pitch one last game after that at home in TX to finish his career. Since it was my first and last chance to see him, I got a cheap ticket. He didn’t pitch well – he couldn’t make it out of the first inning and the last pitch he threw was hit for a grand slam and he was pulled after that. The Rangers later said he hurt his arm and he never pitched that last game in Arlington, so I unexpectedly got to see a somewhat historic moment in sportsball history.
I remember watching this game on TV and couldn’t believe what I saw. In the end, a great story with both the umpire and pitcher showing some true class. Heartbreaking though.
Armando Galarraga – Only hit of Almost Perfect Game (1:10)
For those not familiar, the ump blew the call on final out.
Well, I guess by definition the 10th inning can’t be “perfect” any more, at least in the regular season.
Good point. Perhaps the new extra inning base runner rule should be modified such that it would not apply in the event of a perfect game going into the 10th and higher innings.
Poetry Nook:
The Poem
I spied a Poem
Peeking at me
From patches of gray light
Through a wintery tree
Plus a whistling cold wind
When you take in all three
And add them together
There then was she.
Encircled at a point in
Arcane geometry
Black skeletal branches
Most spiritedly
Sliding and curving
As with agency
Panels of ashen light
Shifting and free
A sere stained glass window
Substantiated-ly.
It seemed for a moment
She was speaking to me
Eyes glancing sideways
And lips whispery
Inscrutably Orphic
Sublime mystery
Then a whip of the wind
And nothing
To
See.
Very nice, semper loquitur. Thank you. Reminds me of another poem: A poem must be palpable and mute, Like a globed fruit. Dumb, as old medallions to the thumb ….
Thanks! :)
A lovely poem — thank you for sharing it. I especially like the personification of the poem as an oracular ‘she’ … perhaps a daughter of your Muse.
Thanks, I’m glad you liked it!
This was very nice to stumble across in the evening. I found it refreshing and with a clever end. Thank you for sharing, Gabby.
:)
“The Military Recruiting Crisis: Even Veterans Don’t Want Their Children to Join”
I can guess why. Back in 2019 the US Army sent out a tweet before memorial Day saying ‘How Has Serving Impacted You?’ I guess they expected all sorts of feel good stories about how wonderful life was in the military. That is not quite what they got-
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/27/727254720/a-u-s-army-tweet-asking-how-has-serving-impacted-you-got-an-agonizing-response
Note that this only highlights the spectacular ones but most vets talked of wrecked knees, injured arms, head trauma and all the other injuries that are part and parcel of a soldier after years of hard work and grind, especially after training accidents.
The link conjured the scene in the film “Starship Troopers”, where the soldier tells how the Infantry made him the man he was today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiUMMWrl1qE
Just logging off for the night but before I do. Good news everybody. Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg has traveled to Kiev to meet with President Zelensky to offer professional help ‘as part of a proposal to form a “working group” on environmental damage caused by the conflict.’ Cough, cough – NS2 – cough, cough – Kakhovka dam. With her is former Swedish Deputy PM Margot Wallstroem, European Parliament VP Heidi Hautala, and former Irish President Mary Robinson. What she is really there for, though, is to help give Zelensky political cover and respectability. She’s just another AOC-
https://www.rt.com/news/578942-greta-thunberg-zelensky-ukraine/
Maybe she’ll go on tour there with Bono! Does she rap? There is a precedent here:
https://www.jellypages.com/breaking/Greta-Thunberg-gambit-get-Bono-to-sing-in-Davos-h30519.html
Jane Goodall?! NOOO000ooo…
When you look at her pedigree and her friends like Branson, she always was, sadly. Must say I was very disappointed to find out the backstory a couple of years ago.
Seems it was all PR. The PR money must have dried up because all the schoolkids around here gave up all their cutting classes environmental activism around when Covid hit, and it never started up again.
So much for debt relief:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/30/us/student-loans-supreme-court-biden
I guess Biden should have packed the court immediately, but nothing fundamental will change.
And Times is incompetently wrong; It would not have been an expense in any way, shape or form. The federal government does not collect income from student loans, it merely destroys currency and causes demand destruction. The whole student loan system is immoral and a subsidy to college administrators on the backs of working people.
This is pretty classic Dem self-ownage. They knew it was going to be blocked by the corporatist supreme, why not just announce they were going to forgive it all instead of their candy-(family blog) 10k forgiveness plan. Now nobody is happy.
Quoth Lambert: “It’s all going according to plan.”
I don’t understand. Why would Biden pack the Court when the current Court is doing exactly what he wanted and expected with his pathetic distraction of a “plan”?
“Google accused of ripping off advertisers with video ads no one saw. Now, the expert view” The Register
This is more juicy than people may think than from just glancing at the headline.
Some highlights:
Shots fired:
“How many more of these big scandals is it going to take to wake advertisers up to the global scam called digital advertising?” said Dr Augustine Fou, an independent ad fraud researcher who runs the Marketing Science Consulting Group, in an email to The Register…”
——
“We’re hearing that Google is now informing advertisers that they can opt out of GVP by contacting their rep…”
I laughed out loud that a platform is acting like they have some kind of human customer rep so readily available to all.
—-
“…Fou said he expects Google will have to pay refunds to advertisers. “Google has paid out refunds before, but those come with gag orders so the recipient of the refund cannot talk about it for the rest of their lives,” he said…”
My jaw dropped at this revelation about the gag order.
What a bezzle deluxe!!
How is it the “bridge to the twenty first century” of symbol manipulators creating digital nivanas become a gigantic fraud machine? Fraud is profitable if you don’t get caught. Or even if you do. (Where is Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX infamy?) zeros and ones held in electronic vapor are so easy to, well, if one is inclined to…
“Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.”
-Agatha Christie
“bridge to the twenty first century”
I had forgotten about that.
Turned out to be a bridge to nowhere.
Hardly a bridge to nowhere! — a bridge to Neoliberal heaven on earth.
As I have said before: if you never use Meta, Facebook, Google, Instagram, etc., you will never miss them. Find other sites for your information and there are lots out there.
From the NYT
Student Loan Forgiveness
Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden’s Debt Forgiveness Plan
They’re on a roll. /s
Used to be 5-4. Then another sell-out in a black robe was appointed to the Supreme Council of Our Intellectual Betters. Thanks Obama and Ruth Bader Ginsburg! Now it’s 6-3. Those magisterially-dressed frauds pretend to be objective arbiters of the law. Instead, as I said above, they make up their minds and then they make up their reasons.
Let’s look at some historical SCOTUS decisions and then question the “wisdom” of these sages:
1. Dred Scott (1857). African-Americans do not have constitutional rights.
2. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Segregation is constitutional.
3. Bush v. Gore (2000). Supreme Court over-rules Florida Supreme Court and stops recount of ballots.
4. Citizens United (2010). No restrictions on political spending by corporations. First amendment issues (freedom of speech) are at play here. One must assume corporations are “persons” in order to make sense of the final ruling. Predictably, that’s what’s the Supreme Council did.
Given its record, I would be ashamed to call myself a Justice of the Supreme Court.
My comment on the Supremes legalization of bigotry seems to have gone into perpetual moderation. But it is another one for the list.
Justice John Paul Stevens had the courage to call this out in his dissent in Bush v. Gore:
Time is not going to heal the wound. As a lawyer, I can tell you it has been getting steadily worse at every level since 2000. Do not expect the rule of law from courts, much less justice. Do not litigate anything if you can possibly help it.
I have a Twitter account, but almost never sign in. I can read everything without doing so and I am not tempted to respond, which is good.
But today when I try to read something on Twitter I go to their webpage demanding that I sign in or get an account. Is this happening to others?
See above comments, and yes:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/30/23779764/twitter-blocks-unregistered-users-account-tweets
Thanks. I missed the earlier comments.
Twitter is useful for dissident accounts like Aaron Mate and a few others, so long as they don’t censor them, so I might sign in. I don’t miss the stupid comments from mainstream liberals or conservatives.
It only happens to me on certain twts I try to read. (tracking?) It’s not universally applied as far as I can tell.
nitter.net still appears to be working. For how long, who knows.
Nitter is now affected. I get a cryptic message “An error has occured in one of your routes”.
John Mearsheimer on Ukraine peace prospects.
The Darkness Ahead: Where The Ukraine War Is Headed
John J. Mearsheimer
6/23/2023
https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/the-darkness-ahead-where-the-ukraine
>As King Charles said this past March (2023), “The security of Europe as well as our democratic values are under threat.”
love to hear kings’ opinions on our democratic values!
Seems like a king probably has a more disinterested opinion than a US congresscriminal.
Thank you flora. Professor Mearsheimer’s writings and lectures always bring clarity to this dreadful situation.
Andrei Martyanov begs to differ.
OK. His comments are primarily ad hominem attacks and arrogant. But, thanks for the link. Always useful to compare outlooks. I’m Canadian by the way.
This is a very good article by Mearsheimer. In a few recent articles he has been a little cautious (at least for him), perhaps trying to reach a broader audience. But not here. Very direct, good historical context, useful references, excellent overall
Thanks for the link although it’s just a summer upper and can’t say that I learned anything new from the good professor. He does it seems to me, leave out one significant outcome which is that the leadership, not just in the US but also in Europe, may change. Indeed this may be the only solution to a mess that the same leadership created..
“The remaining legal way to make diverse campuses is to do it by class,” David Brooks writes.
Knock me over with a spoon. David Brooks said that?!
The remaining legal way to make diverse campuses is to do it by caste – There, fixed that for you.
The remaining legal way to make diverse campuses is to do it by caste
There, fixed that for you..
Benn Steil , one author of COFR’s mag article “Xi’s Plan for China’s Economy Is Doomed to Fail Foreign Affairs” has an interesting paean – bio on Wikipedia. He is right that China’s economy is in for a serious stumble, but I think he’s well off base for seeing it as a failure, rather than an intended consequence. Stressing the economy pre-sanctions has useful domestic long term effects, but probably just as important it makes Europe’s continued support of Biden’s two front economic war difficult continue in the long run. Let’s watch France burn first.
“One Year on From Dobbs: The Dangers of Radicalizing Minority Rule”
Sounds like things are working out as they always have (“We the Elites, Why the US Constitution Serves the Few” by Robert Ovetz), just these days the PMC finds the sometimes are outside the tent trying to piss in, instead of inside pissing out, something odd that happened rarely after 1960s.
2, 4, 6, 8
Supremes said
Your student loan payment
Had best better not be late
Go team!
On UK CBDCs. Malone.
UK is weaponizing banking now
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/uk-is-weaponizing-banking-now?sd=pf
I would not trust a word Farage says, though it would of course be interesting to know what is really going on.
I don’t have to like Farage to despise what the UK banking system seems to be doing. Also Canada for that matter.
Somewhat relevant in the “do you think they’ll stop with the despised personalities” category: I remember when utube bannished Alex whats-his-name and everyone said, “oh him, he’s terrible! HE deserved to be exiled. They wouldn’t do that to anyone normal.” And now, less than 5 years later, legitimate candidates for the US presidency are seeing their videos pulled from utube because ‘reasons’.
(Don’t) Trust But Verify. (Не) доверяй, но проверяй Works either way, doesn’t it? Were you stymied in the verification part?
So far I can confirm that what has happened is within the laws and powers of the UK, Australian, and Canadian governments, crown properties one and all, but you might also want to verify that.
This is a pretty good ~40+ minute utube about CBCDs and the pitfalls.
FedNow launched in midst of banking crisis, is it a precursor to CBDCs, ‘totalitarian’ control?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB_kSDWw2hk
I know from direct experience that small US community banks were being encouraged to sell their charters to larger banks to reduce the number of US banks 30+ years ago, during the C admin.
It’s a pretty trivial story (probably created or boosted by Cock Brand’s PR firm), and I probably shouldn’t bother to comment (except I hate crappy, mass-produced, fake-ethnic stuff), but it is not sriracha sauce that is impacted, it is just the nasty US version of sriracha.
Real, Thai, entirely natural, sriracha sauce is not affected. I favour the much better, much less-expensive Shark Brand, but there are other good ones. Heat is indicated on the Shark Brand label illustration with 1, 2, or 3 chiles. You won’t find it in every supermarket, but search it out and try it, and you will pour out the remaining mass produced California Cock Brand dreck and switch to the good stuff.
Thanks for the tip. I don’t really care for Sriracha sauce but am running low on my trusted brand (Valentina) and will have to get something before long.
Tip for those who are interested: I have been told if you buy Oyster or Fish sauce to look at the amount of protein on the label. If there were fish or oysters used in making the sauce protein should be represented in the nutrient table. If it is zero there is a good chance no animals were hurt in the making of that sauce.
Looking at the AQI map, brings me back to https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I-PK3sbxvhw
Paris riots: France is changing but suburban scars are not healed By Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris
The outbreak of rioting in France is the stuff of bad dreams for President Emmanuel Macron.
….
“It is a scar born of colonialism, arrogance, long-gone wars and nurtured hatreds – to which might be added drugs, crime and religion. And it is not about to disappear.
President Emmanuel Macron had fervently been praying that the banlieue phenomenon would not be added to his litany of burdens, but his wish has not been granted.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66056374#:~:text=It%20is%20a,not%20been%20granted.
I think he is beyond caring, as long as he gets front row seats at concerts.
Yup. I worked with these types.
That tick removal piece neglects the tiny nymph ticks that we have here in Virginia. They are barely larger that the period at the end of this sentence. A tweezer is necessary. This year has been a bumper year for them probably due to a warm Winter. On 21 April I found eight of them on me at day’s end.
Perhaps you could try using oil of lemon eucalyptus to protect yourself-
https://www.healthline.com/health/oil-of-lemon-eucalyptus
UK & Poland intent on taking NATO into war with Russia. Now exceedingly likely given France in flames & Germany politically impotent. (And UK at the edge of economic & social collapse increases pressure for starting something now rather than later). Germany’s SPD considering Polish repatriations will supercharge AfD and create more German chaos. Putin likely knows this and is preparing for the ‘NATO front’. If your not already prepared for war in Europe it’s probably now too late.
https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7785/artykul/3199019,poland-uk-take-charge-in-europe-as-ukraine-war-weakens-francogerman-axis-opinion